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Saturday, May 18, 2013

Toronto Board of Rabbis stepped on a hornets nest.

Dear Rabbis,
I join many others in expressing my profound disappointment and deep
sense of sadness at your, at best, misguided, but far more likely,
misinformed, repugnant statement regarding Pamela Geller’s speaking
engagement here in Toronto, which I attended. For an illustrious group,
as you portray yourselves to be, you have committed the unforgivable sin
of speaking lashen hora of an individual you neither know nor care to
know. You accuse Ms. Geller of being known for her “extreme criticism of
Muslims in language that is intended to shock and ridicule” but you
offer NO examples of her words to support your claim. You claim, with
certainty, that the result of her speaking engagement will be
“increasing tensions within the Jewish community and between Jews and
Muslims in Toronto.” For rabbinic clergy to even level such a charge
against Ms. Geller is beyond the pale – with your words you have given
credibility and legitimacy to all those who hate us, including the
Muslim Brotherhood. You might be proud but, many of us whom you purport
to represent, are ashamed of what you have said. You might find Ms.
Geller’s words “distasteful” but I find your words, accusations and
actions despicable.
And as for friendship, there can only be friendship with those in the
Muslim community who respect our right to be proud Jews in our
wonderful diverse Canadian community. And there are many of them. But,
sadly, not all of them. While you are quick to point out the “radical
fringe” in our own community I have been unsuccessful in finding your
pointed criticism of the “radical fringe’ in the Muslim community. Or is
it that you fear that if you do acknowledge and speak out against the
Muslim Radicals or Jihadis, you risk them not liking you and, by
extension, the entire Jewish community? Are you being naive or
ignorant? The fact is, they don’t like you now and will respect you less
for wanting to sing kumbaya with them.
Where are your voices when Jewish students are accosted on Canadian
campuses on a regular basis? Where is your derision when virulent
antisemites speak out at Islamic conferences and call for hatred, if not
death, towards our people? Where are your press releases when young
Muslim girls are honour-killed because they want to dress like their
Canadian friends? Where is your outrage when Imams preach hate and
antisemitism in their weekly sermons in Canadian mosques and schools?
And where are your voices in response to the 1300+ reported antisemitic
incidents (statistical analysis assumes that only 10% are, in fact,
reported) in Canada just last year?
You have every right to criticize whomever you wish – that is a
privilege afforded to all Canadians but, as Rabbis, you have an
honour-bound duty to speak the truth and to bear witness to the truth.
In this case, you did neither. Your absence at the event was glaring;
your prejudgement of the outcome unfair and unwarranted, and your
accusations regarding Ms. Geller’s words a blatant lie. I have never
been so ashamed to be a member of one of your associate synagogues. Were
there any doubt where the current incarnation of “Court Jews” resides,
now we know.
I am attaching some reading material for your edification.Rochelle Wilner<

“A group with the grandiose-sounding name of the Toronto Board of Rabbis, which actually only represents a handful of reform and nominally conservative Jewish congregations, publicly condemned Geller.
Referring to her “extreme criticism of Muslims” they say they find her
views “distasteful.” They are unable to specify any of those distasteful
views since they evidently haven’t bothered to do investigate what she
actually has said or written and issued a condemnation based on rumor
and reputation.
It is tragic that a group of people with the pretense of being
“learned” and “community leaders” behave like small-minded,
sanctimonious ignoramuses who are an embarrassment to the biblical
teachings they claim to uphold.
Tragic, but not surprising.”Talk about your interfaith outreach success story, it’s not every day that the Muslim Brotherhood‘s premier North American front group grants its seal of approval.Dear Board of Rabbis:
With all due respect, I certainly realize and appreciate that we in
the Jewish community have a right to our own, individual opinions. I
read your condemnation of Pamela Geller and of those groups (JDL and
Toronto Zionist Center) who sponsored her speaking engagement last night
in Toronto. Now I think it’s only fair that you listen to my thoughts.
I was very excited to finally see Pamela Geller speak in person last
night. She didn’t let us down. She was eloquent, high energy,
motivational, inspirational, brave and beautiful. She mentioned the
story of how York Region’s Police ‘Little Rickey’ pressured Rabbi Kaplan
of the Flamingo Chabbad Synagogue to cancel her speaking engagement. A
story that most of your readers by now are fully aware. But what was
news to me, was that she was condemned by many Toronto Rabbis. Sadly,
like many conservative or right wing political groups, if one of their
members speaks too loudly and is found to be too controversial, they are
often thrown under the bus. This is exactly what our heros like Ms.
Geller face on a daily basis.
During the Holocaust, so too did many Jewish leaders (rabbis
included), decide to keep a low profile and stifle cries by many
individual Jews to intervene in Europe. Sadly, very few rabbis pleaded
with government leaders to bomb the railways leading millions of Jews to
various concentration camps. They didn’t want to rock the boat and
heaven forbid, become controversial.
The current war against radical Islam that we are fighting is no less
a threat. It demands that we speak up where ever and when ever
possible. In your condemnation of Ms. Geller, you made blanket
accusations without identifying even one example of her hate speech
against Muslims. In fact she is a friend to moderate Muslims. She helps
protect Muslim women from rape, attacks and murder by their own family
and community. One shining example is how she undertook finding a burial
plot for one such young muslim girl who was killed by her own family.
If I was a ‘good’ Muslim, I would consider Ms. Geller a hero. As a proud
Jew and defender of Israel, I am thrilled to support Ms. Geller and
heroes like her. If identifying radical Muslims makes you uncomfortable,
too bad. Funny, I didn’t read any comments from your board attacking
Muslim terrorist groups and states like Hamas, Hizbola, Iran, Saudi
Arabia, etc. On the other hand you hand you had no problem attacking the
little Jewish woman from New York. Shame on You!
Kudos to the JDL and the Toronto Zionist center for stepping up to
the plate and providing security and a venue for Ms. Geller to speak to
Torontonians. I’m sure that many other people would have liked to see
her speak last night but the venue was too small. In fact many in the
audience were forced to watch her via closed circuit TV in another room.
I find it very disturbing that of all the synagogues in the GTA, not
one of them offered to host her event. I find it very disturbing that of
the hundreds of thousands of Jews in the GTA, they were mostly quiet
about the attempted silencing of Ms. Geller. I applaud all the righteous
Gentiles who did attend the event last night. But if we (Jews) don’t
support our own heroes, who will?
Sincerely,
Leon Kushner, TorontoCraven Toronto Rabbis Condemn Pamela Geller Appearance, Pay Lip Service to Our Most Precious Freedom
As far as I know there weren’t any members of Toronto’s Board of
Rabbis in the packed audience last night to hear Pamela Geller detail
her efforts to put a dent in the inroads being made by Islamic
supremacists in the name of jihad. Instead, our esteemed clergy issued this delightfully demented message, a tiny gem of obsequiousness and inadvertent humour:

The Toronto Board of Rabbis (TBR) expresses its
profound disappointment that a local Jewish organization has extended
an invitation to Pamela Geller, a blogger who is known for her extreme
criticism of Muslims in language that is intended to shock and ridicule.
The TBR is a strong supporter of freedom of speech for all, including
Ms. Geller. Ms. Geller’s voice and message are already well known here
in Canada and beyond. There was no sense in inviting her here to Toronto
to speak before a Jewish audience. Sadly the only sure result of this
event will be increasing tensions within the Jewish community and
between Jews and Muslims in Toronto.

The TBR, which represents rabbis from all denominations
of Judaism, wishes to make clear to all that it finds the
invitation distasteful, just as it finds Ms. Geller’s
viewsdistasteful. We dissociate ourselves from the actions of the
radical fringe Jewishgroup that extended the invitation. We call for
more events here in Toronto that will build up friendship and
understanding between local Jews and Muslims.

Allow me to express my profound disappointment that a local body of
Jewish rabbis has, in a shocking dereliction of duty to the community it
serves, chosen the smoke and mirrors–the fraud–of
interfaith pieties over freedom. The freedom to condemn the Jew-hate
embedded in core Islamic texts. The freedom to criticize grotesque and
gruesome Islamic practices–honour killings, the obliteration of female
sexual organs, Medieval punishments for apostasy and other “crimes.” And
above all–and I would suggest that this is what sets the West apart
from lands where Islam calls the shots–the freedom to shock and
ridicule, to be saucy and rude, to poke fun at tyrants both petty and
great, to “blaspheme,” to blow a big fat, wet raspberry at those
dhimmified mice who would silence us in the name of inter-cultural
amity and at the false friends they are so desperate to mollycoddle and mollify.
In the war that’s raging between freedom and dhimmitude, I, like Ms.
Geller, and like all those who were there last night to hear her, choose
freedom. That the Toronto Board of Rabbis has decided that groveling
and pusillanimity are the way to go tells you everything you need to
know about the “sha shtill” mentality that yet pervades and perverts
mainstream Jewish leadership in Canada.Update: BCF taped the speech that
the spineless Toronto Board of Rabbis pre-condemned. There is not an
iota of hate in it, but as Geller herself observed, in our time, Hashem
help us, “the truth is hate speech,” and those with the chutzpah to
speak it are branded “haters” and “kooks.”Update: The spineless rabbis do know that Jew-hate is all the rage in Toronto,
don’t they? Do they really believe they can wish it away via interfaith
bromides and sucking up to their Muslim “friends”? If so, they are as
stupid as they are supine.Update: Funny how the spineless rabbis slam Geller but have nothing much to say about the Zionhasson display with
depressing regularity at Toronto’s zany Beit Zatoun. (Question: who’s
funding this bastion of Zion-loathing? Marxists? Islamists? Both?)

These are the opening words of your homepage and
it is appropriate at this time to ask you why these words do not apply
to Pamela Geller’s campaign to defend the Jewish people (and all people)
from sharia and jihad and protect Muslims from their own barbarous acts
against their own people, especially young women whose plight Ms.
Geller has highlighted (she has actually helped many young women in
distress).

Last night at the Toronto Zionist Center I witnessed a spectacular
event in which Jews were unified in support of a woman of courage, a
woman whose erudition, compassion and knowledge had the audience
spellbound as she revealed the truth about Islamic extremism in a
concise and factual way, backing each and every claim and assertion with
common sense and an understanding that comes from having read and
studied and lived through the problems that others have so arrogantly
sloughed off because they are unprepared to accept, consider and act
upon the truth.

Some at this time are still blaming others for the violence and
killing in the name of jihad, as if ignoring the truth or presenting it
as a problem that can be curtailed if we just give more to the
terrorists and respect their way of life and their worldview. Jews, of
all people, should know that when people say that they want to do us
harm, whether they are commanded to do so in Hitler’s Mein Kampf or the
Islamic Haddiths, the executioners must be taken seriously. Some Jews in
America did not take the lead up to the Holocaust seriously; some Jews,
and even some rabbis wanted to appease the leaders of the day, not
upset their positions in American society, and counseled other Jews and
those in power to ignore the pleas of other Jews in America who had the
moral fortitude and courage to speak out against Nazism and were
sensitive to the horrific calls of distress from their brothers and
sisters in Europe.

Pamela Geller is one of the brave ones who is willing to put her
career on the line and throw all her energy into an endeavor that other
Jewish leaders have failed to understand/support and, most disturbingly,
these Jewish leaders often reveal a disdainful and twisted reaction
when people like Ms. Geller speak out – it is beyond sha-shtil and has
entered the realm of condemning people who are for us while sympathizing
with those who are against us.

I heard last night that the Toronto Board of Rabbis has spoken
against Pamela Geller and support the York Region Police who
strong-armed a rabbi into giving up his right to offer Ms. Geller the
stage in his Chabad to publically air her knowledge and facts – and that
is a shameful immoral act of betrayal by rabbis – and an act of
aggression against a woman of valor.

I am ashamed of the Toronto Board of Rabbis (and others see
last letter) for being so willfully blind, unwilling to listen to what
Ms.Geller has to say, unwilling to allow others the opportunity to hear
her warnings and the impactful story she has to tell. It is shameful
that as Canadians are being targeted by those who want to behead our
Prime Minister, poison our water and blow up our passenger railways,
while the Toronto Board of Rabbis are speaking out against a woman who
speaks to these issues with strength, courage and knowledge.

I work each and every day on the problems of antisemitism and
defending Israel against those who have been molesting our rights to
speak up in defense of our homeland and in defense of our rights to live
without the terrorism that comes mainly from one source – jihadists –
whatever form that terrorism takes, wherever the terrorists happen to
live. The Toronto Board of Rabbis are endangering their community and
especially Jews when they condemn that which ought to be praised and
supported but instead back those who are killing our people as we speak
and have vowed to kill many more in the future.

Please rescind your uninformed decision now and make your statement as public as your initial condemnation of Ms. Geller.

Gary Gerofsky

From Richard Klagsbrun -

…….., the west is in a war against those who intentionally target
civilians for murder, who kill Gays, treat women as little more than
property, and who believe free speech is subservient to their dictates.
That we should support a liberal democracy fighting to defend its
citizens against them is something anyone resembling a modicum of a
moral compass should support.
Which raises the question of why Geller’s reputation is so rancid.
The answer falls into two categories, one is that there are Islamist
organizations whose purposes it serves to suppress her message. Those
include Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated groups like the Islamic Society of
North America, who portray themselves as mainstream, but have links to
the most reprehensible practices and ideologies of hate.
The other are the useful idiots of Jihadism who are primarily
concerned with maintaining their image as “community leaders” who
promote tolerance, even if it means tolerating a doctrine that calls for
suppression of free speech, illiberal treatment of minorities and
outright murderous acts.
Unfortunately, some among the so-called leadership of the Jewish
community are behaving like self-serving moral pygmies in order to
bolster their own image, at what to them must be only the minor cost of
truth and integrity.
A group with the grandiose-sounding name of the Toronto Board of Rabbis, which in reality only represents a handful of reform and nominally conservative Jewish congregations, publicly condemned Geller.
Referring to her “extreme criticism of Muslims” they say they find
her views “distasteful.” They are unable to specify any of those
distasteful views since they evidently haven’t bothered to investigate
what she actually has said or written and issued a condemnation based on
rumor and reputation.
It is tragic that a group of people with the pretense of being
“learned” and “community leaders” behave like small-minded,
sanctimonious ignoramuses who are an embarrassment to the biblical
teachings they claim to uphold.
Tragic, but not surprising.
It’s no secret that there is an implicit understanding among some of
the heads of Jewish congregations and organizations. They go out and
raise money as “community leaders” and make very good salaries in the
process. They are called upon as “official Jews” when the CBC or Toronto
Star wants a quote. And all they have to do to maintain that is to play
ball and periodically issue worthless platitudes about diversity and cooperation with people who hold them in complete contempt.
Meanwhile the people who actually stand up to those who want to
destroy the Jewish State or speak out forcefully against terrorism and
for free speech get portrayed by these “official Jews” as a “radical
fringe.”
But make no mistake about it. Many official Jews profess, albeit
very, very quietly, to the radical fringe that they share their
concerns. But not too loudly of course, because that might entail a cut
in pay and prestige.
But far too many are no better than the appeasers who, in the 1930′s
felt it would be better to remain quiet and not rock the boat as the
Nazis came to power in Germany and went about their work of genocide.
In fact, they are even worse. Because now with the lessons of history, the “official Jews” should know what horrors their appeasement of evil can bring.

Caroline Glick & Mark Levin: The Israeli Solution -- A One-State Pla

Why Israel Opposes International Forces in the Jordan Valley

U.S. scholars' group votes in favor of academic boycott of Israel

Yet another indication of the absolute corruption of American academia today. "US scholars' group votes in favor of academic boycott of Israel," from the Jerusalem Post, December 16: NEW YORK – The 5,000-member American Studies Association (ASA), which describes itself as “the nation’s oldest and largest association devoted to...http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/12/us-scholars-group-votes-in-favor-of-academic-boycott-of-israel.html

Israel Living Prophecy

A senior New Israel Fund officer told a U.S. official in 2010 that the disappearance of the Jewish state would not be a tragedy, according to a document that was leaked by Wikileaks...She commented that she believed that in 100 years Israel would be majority Arab and that the disappearance of a Jewish state would not be the tragedy that Israelis fear since it would become more democratic.

Mideast expert Michael Widlanski: Fatah is a joke

US-Israeli talks focus on Ahmadinejad's possible ouster

How to exploit the deep cracks forming in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration for removing the Iranian president was a top item on the agenda of the high-level talks between Barack Obama's advisers and Israeli officials at Mossad headquarters in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv, Wednesday, July 29.

DEBKAfile's Iranian sources report that Ahmadinejad's cabinet is falling apart; of his original lineup of 21 ministers, only nine remain at their posts.

The Identity Of The Land

Why the Palestinians need to recognize the Jewish State

We do NOT support a 2-state solution

A January 2009 poll found that Americans oppose creating a Palestinian state by 45-31 percent. A February 2009 Maagar Mohot Survey Institute poll has also shown that Israelis oppose creating a Palestinian state by 51-32 percent.

Many other polls tell a similar story.

These figures suggest that Americans and Israelis have understood that creating a Palestinian state under current conditions will not bring peace but merely another terror state.

Netanya,Israel

Jerusalem At Night

Why reconstruct Gaza without making demands

- that Shalit be release without convicted terrorists being released by Israel in exchange,

- that the US be put in charge of the southern border to ensure that Hamas isn’t rearmed?

- that their three preconditions be accepted by Hamas, i.e. agree to all former agreements,recognize Israel and renounce terror

- that Hamas amend their Charter

- That Hamas disconnect from Iran

The answer is that they don’t want to.

Children of Hamas

Picture of Hamas children the media does not show you

IDF: Civilian Deaths in Gaza Less than 25% of Total

A maximum of 25% of the Palestinians killed in Gaza since the beginning of the Israeli operation are innocent civilians, the head of the IDF's Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA), Col. Moshe Levi, said Wednesday. According to Palestinian medical officials, Israel has killed some 1,000 Palestinians and more than half of them are civilians. Levi said the CLA had compiled a list with the names of 900 Palestinians killed during the fighting. He said that 150 names were of women, children and elderly, and that the maximum number of civilians killed so far was 250. Levi also dismissed claims that 43 Palestinians were killed in an IDF attack on a Hamas terror cell that was firing mortars at Israeli forces from within an UNRWA school in Jabalya. Levi said 21 Palestinians were killed in the attack, including a number of Hamas operatives. (Jerusalem Post)

Hamas teaching the children of Gaza

An Iranian reformist daily newspaper has criticized Hamas "for risking lives of civilians, amongst them children, by hiding its forces in nurseries and hospitals." This is reported in today's Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam. The Palestinian daily adds that in response the Iranian government has closed the newspaper.

"The Iranian news agency "Irna" reported yesterday, that the Iranian Culture Ministry has closed the reformist daily newspaper "Karjo Zaran", because it published a report that included criticism of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). On December 30 the paper published a statement of a reformist student organization, that has criticized Hamas for risking lives of civilians, amongst them children, by hiding its forces in nurseries and hospitals. The statement was published whilst the Iranian government expresses a unified stands against Israel, and Tehran is overwhelmed by demonstrations against Israel."

[Al-Ayyam, Jan. 1, 2009] Thanks PMW

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Iran-backed Hamas Rocket, Mortar Attacks and Nuclear Developments

9,400+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since 2003. [1]3,200+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza in 2008 alone. [2]6,500+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. [3]543+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israeli territory during the ceasefire from June 19 to Dec. 19, 2008. [4]28 deaths caused by rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israel since 2001. The dead include Israelis, Palestinians and foreign workers. Since the ceasefire ended, Iran-backed Palestinian groups in Gaza fired rockets and mortars that killed an Israeli-Arab construction worker and a mother of four who was seeking shelter in a bus station as a rocket warning siren sounded. [5]1,000+ people in Israel injured from rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since 2001, including Israelis, Palestinians and foreign workers. Since the ceasefire, 44 Israelis have been injured and 200 have been treated for shock. [6]Thanks Israel Project

It began with this...

The British Foreign Office, November 2nd, 1917Dear Lord Rothschild,I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.

“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate theachievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities inPalestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.2

Signed,Arthur James Balfour[Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs]

Favorite Books

While Europe Slept

About Me

Semi-retired Professor, now also permanent resident of Israel;divides time between both countries-serves on several Boards of Directors for Israel advocacy groups;Chana, resident of Jerusalem, JCPA member

Syria is an Occupier-Are You Listening World?

As of this minute, Syria occupies at least 177 square miles of Lebanese soil. That you are now reading about it for the first time is as much a scandal as the occupation itself.

The news comes by way of a fact-finding survey of the Lebanese-Syrian border just produced by the International Lebanese Committee for UN Security Council Resolution 1559, an American NGO that has consultative status with the UN. In meticulous detail - supplemented by photographs and satellite images - the authors describe precisely where and how Lebanon has been infiltrated.

Though the land grabs are small affairs individually, they collectively add up to an area amounting to about 4% of Lebanese soil - in U.S. terms, the proportional equivalent of Arizona. Of particular note is that the area of Syrian conquest dwarves that of the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms which amount to an area of about 12 square miles.

It would be nice to see the Arab world protest this case of illegal occupation, given its passions about the subject.

Information worth Possessing

"Israel gave the Palestinians an autonomy in 42% of the West Bank and Gaza after the Oslo accords in the early 90's. Over 92% of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza were then under the administration of the Palestinian Authority and its Chairman Yasser Arafat.

"Israel is surrounded by 10 hostile Arab countries who do not even recognize its right to exist ( Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Algeria, Lybia, Morocco, Tunisia, Aden) and Iran"